SERIOUSLY SPRING (AT LAST!)

This has been a slow spring getting here after an amazing cold snowy winter, but all of a sudden, everything started to bloom at once. The red camellias that usually bloom off and on all winter did not get a chance to bloom in December, January or February, so they are really doing their thing now... but the strange thing is - they last camellias to bloom, especially Red Emperor (12 feet tall) that doesn't bloom until April as a rule, are blooming right along with the earlier ones - and they are over loaded with blooms! The white camellia bush which is over 10 feet tall now, is just loaded with blooms. This one is up over the roof...I keep cutting the peppermint camellia back - it is in front of the electric meter - but it too, is big and loaded. My favorite, Pink Perfection, is just getting started. I was afraid it was going to drown this winter. It often was standing in a lake. But, the camellias are awesome! Likewise, the daffodils all opened at the same time except for the very late ones, and I don't know when I have seen so many blooms at once in my yard. Last year, Bobbie gave me 5 flats of pansies... i put them in and they disappeared under the snow. I was sure they had frozen to death - but not so! I have bunches of pansies in bloom all over the place. What a joy! But, one of my greatest delights is having vases and vases of flowers in the house. I love to smell them when I walk into a room and see their brightness on a table. Meanwhile, at our place in the Poconos - they had - SNOW! Yep, this was last Tuesday from the webcam a few miles from our house. Here, we had another 2 1/2 inches of rain. It has been so wet, our fungus is growing fungus. Go figure! But, get ready - the azaleas and iris will be opening soon! And I think I see little purple bumps on the Redbud out the window. Next week the veggie garden gets started. Oh MY!

SHATTS, SHATTERS, AND STUFF

First things first - my award from W VA Fur and Root - This is the best I can do! Well, that and Thank You!!!!!

ADDING ONTO MY GRATITUDE LIST, I will put shatters, and, of course, friends. Here on the Eastern Shore, we have several names for fallen pine needles. The Come Here’s call them pine straw. Then, in time, in an effort to be more “Shore-ified” as a friend of mine from Tangier calls it, they pick up the term shatts or shatters. If you are from “down the county,” like Northampton County, you call them shatts. If you are from Accomack County, you call them shatters. Now the trick is to learn what to call them where you live, because if you are from New Jersey, for example, and live in Accomack County, and call them shatts, you are still wrong. Oh, it is so hard to learn the local languages!
My first year teaching here, I taught on the fair island of Chincoteague every afternoon. It was a long drive up the road and across the cause way and series of bridges, but in the class room it was also a trip thru time. Many of the kids were 5th or 6th generation “Teagers” and spoke with a totally different accent than those on the mainland. Like the folks on Tangier, an island out in the Chesapeake Bay, their language still had a bit of the old English “brogue”… it was similar, but not quite the same. It took some learning to understand what a kid meant when he said he didn’t have any “brain” – but meant brown, or asked how to paint a “clide” – cloud. They went dine tine after school – that’s where the stores were. And pine straw on the island is called shatters. Boy, I could take a digression award for that paragraph!
Anyway, my friend, Pat, who should get paid by John Deere for advertising their products, drove up to my house the other day in his tractor, pulling a little – or not so little – wagon behind it loaded with shatters which he dumped at the end of my turn-around. To Eastern Shore men (and women) a load of shatters, especially nice clean shatters, is like a load of gold. Well, OK, that is stretching it, but you get my point. Pat does the town a great service by raking up the shatters that fall along the roads in town. We used to have a couple of EXCELLENT workers here in town that kept the place looking as beautiful as it could be, and one of their jobs was to sweep up the shatters from under the pine trees. I, as a conscientious citizen used to give them a place to dump said shatters – my front yard! I them hauled them around to various garden areas to mulch the azaleas, camellias and other acid loving plants. They made the town look nice (and BOY! Do we miss them!) and, I saved them from having to find a place to dump them. Shatters are good on asparagus and excellent for your strawberry plants. Punkin followed me around hiding in the leaves that are falling, and inspecting the mulching.
While carrying a load of shatters out back, I saw this huge fungus. The locals call this a chocolate pie fungus. I can’t imagine why!
While Pat was here delivering the shatters, he helped lift the Stand-uppity garden he made for me so I could slide bricks under the legs. During the heavy rains earlier this summer, 2 of the legs started to sink deep in the ground. Now, it is closer to level again. See the cover? Did you ever wonder what they do with all those big campaign posters along the road? If you ask real nice, “they” will gladly dump them at your house when the election is over. All you have to do is find out who “they” are! The posters make great ground covers to kill the grass and weeds over the winter so the place is ready to plant in the spring. They also made a great cover for my Stand-uppity garden to keep it dry over the winter, and keep the planting mix clean.
Answering a question about the mini roses –
And 2 new fall azaleas.
Hope you enjoyed my language lesson!

GIFTS SHARED

Some of you might remember, a few weeks ago I shared a few pictures with you - things I saw that were a bit out of the ordinary. I have always considered these brief moments of beauty and wonder gifts. The first time I remember using that term was one summer day, my aunt and I were returning to our home in the Poconos from grocery shopping, and I decided to take the old back way home, a seldom traveled road winding over the mountains. It was a slow ride, the road was in bad repair, but we didn't mind. As I came around a curve, there in the middle of the road was a red fox stretched out. I assumed he had been hit, and slowed down to stop and move him off the road, sprinkle him with a little sage and tobacco, bless him on his journey to his next life, when he raised his head and looked at me. By then I had stopped. He got up, walked to the side of the road and cut me a look that said, "Gee, can't a fellow catch a little sun anymore without somebody interrupting him?" He sat in the tall grass and weeds at the side of the road, barely visible as I slowly drove by. Then when he was satisfied I was not coming back, he sat down in the middle of the road again, probably to take the rest of his sun bath! All I could say was - "What a gift!"

Since then, I realize any day I see anything is first the gift of sight which I do not take for granted - and if it is something that is not seen everyday or even very often, I consider it a gift. So, I asked my friends to send me their "gifts." Some folk put their pictures on their blogs, some sent me pix to put on mine. So, I will try to find where I stashed them and share them with you. Probably my favorite is this picture of a black bear sent to me by spaceflighter... the bear resides in Maine, the home of this chippie, another favorite animal of mine. We don't have bears or chippie around here. This sunflower is from my neighbor Dorothy Perrucci (Onley Images) who said it was a real gift because they did not plant it. She also sent this sunset picture. Don't you love sunsets? I think this is Lake Gaston?

Another friend (Julie) has a little family of mushrooms that come up each year in this spot. Another neighbor spotted this fungus on my Buddha stump. The bright red only lasted one day.

Another very special gift is to have these pileated woodpeckers living a few hundred feet from my house. Tho I have seen them recently, this picture is from last winter.

One of the joys of living here on the Shore is spotting one of the wild ponies on Assateague. They are not that rare, but they have to be kept behind fences since the public doesn't seem to understand they are wild and apparently can't read the Please DO NOT FEED the ponies signs. Ponies, like many wild animals, can become moochers, and are not afraid of humans, especially humans with snacks. The sad part of this story is then folks who then come along and think they can pet the ponies because the ponies are coming to their cars and they often get bitten when they do not feed them. The hand comes out... the pony opens his mouth... One year I saw a father try to put his kid on a pony's back while Mom took the picture. The kid got tossed and kicked in the head. Of course, it was the pony's fault - sue the park.

This little fellow kept jumping up at my front door. Sorry the shot isn't better - it was thru the plexiglas.

Send me a gift - I will put it on here!